The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors, and more particularly, to high density electrical connectors.
Some electrical systems, such as network switches or computer servers with switching capabilities, include large backplanes with several daughter cards, such as switch cards or line cards, plugged into the backplane. The electrical systems utilize electrical connectors to interconnect the circuit boards defining the cards to the circuit board defining the backplane. Typically, the electrical connector is a right angle connector mounted to an edge of the backplane or one of the cards. The electrical connector is mated with a header connector mounted to a midplane.
Known electrical systems that utilize right angle connectors and header connectors mounted to a midplane are not without disadvantages. For instance, a large number of switch cards and line cards are typically connected to the backplane, which increases the overall size of the backplane. The density of the electrical connectors has an impact on the overall size of the electrical connectors, and thus the overall size of the backplane. The density may be expressed in terms of the number of signal contacts or pairs of signal contacts per linear inch of the electrical connector. While decreasing the spacing between the signal contacts is one way of increasing the density, decreasing the spacing may negatively affect the electrical performance of the electrical connector. The amount of undesirable coupling between adjacent signal contacts is based at least in part on the distance between the signal contacts. As such, merely changing the spacing between the signal contacts may not be an effective way to increase the density of the electrical connector, as the electrical connector may not perform adequately.
One method of reducing undesirable coupling and corresponding signal degradation between adjacent signals may be achieved by surrounding particular signal contacts or pairs of signal contacts with ground contacts. However, adding ground contacts reduces the overall density of the electrical connector by taking up space, thus increasing the spacing between the signal contacts or pairs of signal contacts.
Thus, providing a high density electrical connector with minimal signal loss remains a challenge.